When you ship a product, you have just gone through a large benchmark. The release of the product is really just the beginning of the process. You can’t expect the app to have large downloads, perform well and have a lot of usage, without working to improve mistakes. This is a common problem that many make when launching an app.
You can’t just publish and pray that everything is going to go well. This assumes that the launched app is perfect and fully complete. It also ignores the benefits you get from collecting feedback about your app from users. This allows you to roll out new version based upon the feedback and market data. Delivering often and quickly can have benefits for both mature products and unproven ones, but the scenarios will be different.
Concepts Which Are Unproven
When you have a smaller user base for a product that’s unproven on the market, you’ll have a smaller release and you’ll want to launch quickly. There’s a degree of uncertainty with new concepts so you can’t know what the user is going to want right away. By getting it to the market quickly, you can collect data, get user feedback, and look at the assumptions you have made about your product. If you take too long to get your unproven product to market, then you’re using up time and resources based upon assumptions and you may need to change these. Failures will also cost more.
When you release a product you’ll learn from the user base and be able to improve the user experience. You can add new features, fill in gaps in older versions, and make your product better for the user. By focusing on features that the users want or are using the most of in the app for example, you can make the product better and then roll out the new features.
Once you grow the app by looked at the assumptions through approving or disapproving them, have made a more mature app, deliver new features quickly on a regular basis, you will retain, engage, and have a happy user base for your app.
Brands Which Are Mature
When you have a mature brand, there’s already a large user base. Consumers expect a level of quality from any mature product or brand regardless if it’s mobile or not. When the first version of a product goes to market, it has to meet a level of quality that consumers expect. It might not have a lot of features, but it has to be of a high quality, functional, and have real value for the consumer. Users don’t have as much leniency for mature brands when compared to unproven products. New products from an established brand need to please customers from the first release. A viable product is going to be different depending upon the company that’s going to be releasing it.
An MVP needs to be launched quickly, but the first version has to be fleshed out. If you update often, you’re able to add new features and functionality to that product so the user experience is enhanced and more value is added. This adds to retention and user engagement. You need to add value to users when you release new versions and worry less about validating your assumptions to prove your concept.
Spotify has a Decoupled Release Model by creating an environment where the release is easy to do. Their product is complex, but they have changed the architecture which allows for decoupled releases so new features can be pushed out easily without impacting the overall architecture. It’s a ship early and ship often mindset. They have a lightweight process so they can rapidly get new features of their product out fast.
Quick Frequent Releases Make for Better Products
When you deliver quickly and often, you will be able to consistently improve your product, add value to your users, and ensure that your product has longer-term success. It’s important to have a culture and a process that will allow you to do this. You can’t just focus on the initial launch as you’ll have a stagnant product and it will lose its relevancy in the marketplace which is competitive and evolving all the time.
